I have shown before how to use Google Blog Bar as related posts widget, But when I actually tried to use it on my site, I didn't like all these JavaScript and CSS files that I've to include.

And since I already use jQuery -and who doesn't- I decided to rebuild the Blog Bar from scratch.

Of course, I'll be using the API RESTful interface of the AJAX Search API that returns JSON encoded results. So I didn't scratch too much :)

Advantages Of My jQuery-ed Google Blog Bar:

1. Much lighter: Using Google Blog Bar, you will have to include 3 Javascript files (2 files Actually , but fist one dynamically loads the third ):
   
   - Google AJAX API Loader file which is 15KB
   
   - And AJAX Search API file which is 72KB
   
   - Google Blog Bar file which is 31KB
   
   - Plus 2 CSS files that you can go without them and weighs 26KB total
   
   So, Total of Javascript files is 118KB vs. My 4KB Blog Bar!
   
   Of course, I will not count jQuery 55KB, cause -as I said- it is an essential include.
2. More Control: Google Blog Bar will do repeated JSON queries to get more results that I didn't need and can't be disabled.
3. It is jQuery-ed, Which is the most important :) One can add extra pretty jQuery effects..
4. Works as related posts widget: When no query expression was set , By Default plugin use current page tags to create search expression by ORing those tags.